Blood and Glass
by Arachne
Summary: The world ended three weeks ago. There wasn't anyone to stop it this time.


Blood and Glass

**Disclaimer: **The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Wheedon, not to me. I promise I won't spill coffee on it or lose it down the back of the sofa. This is a possible future, one that might have taken place if Season Six had gone rather differently. Everything about this timeline and its denizens that you can't explain by reference to Buffy canon is my fault. 

**Chapter 1: Death and the Maiden**

_"Take your places, choose your sins  
Everyone loses, no-one wins  
I have seen the future and this is how it begins…"_

   - Pop Will Eat Itself, "Eveything's Cool"

It's been three weeks since the world ended.

She doesn't know how she's ended up as their leader, only that she is. She's the one who scouts ahead, checks that the streets are clear, bullies the younger ones into keeping going, snaps the others out of it when the horror and the despair gets too much. She's the one who keeps them alive, who keeps the lost children from the darkness that took their parents and friends. 

Darkness. It's their enemy. They shouldn't be out in it now, but they have to be. The church they used to hide in isn't safe any more, not since the enemy worked out that they didn't have to run the gauntlet she'd set up. Some of the enemy were cleverer than others. She hadn't realised that, and so they'd been driven out by fire, had burst out past their - _her_ - own traps, over the warped and blackened shards of the stained-glass windows, over the blazing wreckage of the church doors, into the arms of the enemy. 

They'd lost nearly half of them in that smoky, dazed moment. She's still trying not to think about their screams. 

She doesn't know where she's taking the survivors. Another church, perhaps? She'll be lucky to find one that isn't already burnt out and desecrated. The Tube stations are out. It's dark all the time underground. She's trying not to think about their chances. She's trying not to think that they're all going to die. 

And now she ducks ahead again, signals to the others to hide behind a wheelie-bin, hoping the smell of month-old rotting food will mask the scent of human blood enough. There can't be many people left. The enemy must be getting hungry.

She slips forwards, fast and quiet, and peers round the corner. The next street is empty, the tarmac sparkling from the wreckage of shop windows. The enemy remember being human enough to loot. 

A while watching, listening. It's so quiet these days. Car engines aren't background noise any more, they're a sign of the enemy. Near complete silence. The distant crackling of fires left to burn. Footsteps. She stiffens, strains to hear, to locate…

They're behind her. Back the way she came. 

She spins round and begins to run, hearing splinters of glass crack under her boots. The sound almost makes her stop and duck into hiding, but then the screaming starts, drowns it out, drowns out her caution. 

And then she's round the corner, sprinting towards the bin she left them cowering behind. And she can't hear the screaming any more. And she smells the spilt blood, sees the limp bodies, the Enemies standing over them, fangs still buried in their throats. 

And she keeps running, not knowing what she's going to do to them, driven by blind mammalian rage and loyalty alone. And they drop the shells of those she used to protect, and turn, laughing to her. 

And a soft voice from the shadows whispers "_Ignis" and they burst into flames._

She stops in her tracks, staring numbly as the human-shaped bonfires lurch into each other, into the walls of the alley, and burst into dust so quickly…

The shadows seem to be pulled aside like a curtain, and a woman steps out. Small, pale, dark-haired, dark-eyed, dressed in black. She walks across the alley, glances cursorily at the ash-scattered corpses of the children, and then fixes the girl with a curious stare.

"So, what were you going to do to them?" The dark woman has an American accent, and her tone is almost cheerful.

She's shaking now, it's getting harder to hold back the grief and fear. "I… I don't know."

"You used to look after those kids, right?" The dark woman smiles now, a bright cold smile. "I know. I've been watching you for a few days now." Her tone is friendly, almost conspiratorial, but somehow brittle.

"I… I…" She can't make words properly. She's suddenly feeling very ill, and weak. She hasn't been eating properly since the world ended, been living off chocolate bars scrounged from kiosks. She's barely slept, either. 

The dark woman walks a little closer to her. She skitters away, instinctively mistrustful. She knows the Enemy can look human. She knows they sometimes fight among themselves.

The dark woman pulls a sincere face. "Ooh, no. Not vampy here. I mean look, pulse having and everything." She extends an arm to the girl, wrist turned up. 

The girl reaches out, not sure why, those darkly glittering eyes filling her head. The dark woman nods encouragingly, as she touches that thin, pale wrist, feels the pulse fluttering under it. "See? All alive."

The girl realises that the dark woman is standing beside her now. "C'mon. I've got a safe place for you, and you can have food, proper food, and sleep. And then, tomorrow night, we can go look for more people, I mean more real, human kind of people, I know where there might be some…"

Somehow, without her really noticing it, they're walking together, through the dark streets, broken glass splintering under their feet but something soaking up the sound, that bright voice talking on and on, those dark eyes absorbing all questions. The enemy moved past them sometimes, going their own way, never seeming to pay attention to them or hunt them. 

And then they're walking up a narrow street in a greener and once-richer part of London, white marble rising before them. The British Museum. She'd been there on a school trip, before. A faint frown creases her brow, as she wonders dreamily how long they've been walking, how they managed to cross the city so fast… 

The dark woman leads her up the steps, over doors pulled from their hinges, past the wreckage of the reception desk. "I know, it's terrible. I mean, some people have _no respect for knowledge or, or history, or anything…" _

Then she's led through the main hall, through darkened rooms in which strange, ancient, brutal shapes lie hidden in the shadows. Then the dark woman lets go of her hand (_when did she take her hand?_), drops to her knees under the archway between two halls, presses a hand to the floor, and mutters something strange and harsh-sounding. There's a brief flicker of whitish-red light over the floor and walls, seeming to lick along the shapes of what might almost be writing in some archaic language, and then the dark woman steps into the next hall, beckoning her along. She follows, and out of the corner of her eye sees the light flow in reverse across the symbols on floor and walls.

There's light in this hall, a soft greenish light that seems to be coming from a large lump of rough quartz in the centre. Around her, statues of gods rise into the darkness and piles of old books lurk in the shadows. The dark woman gestures to the left. "There's the toilets, so you can, y'know, get clean." 

She nods dreamily, and walks through the door. There are candles on the sinks, and by their light she splashes warm water over her face, even tries to scrub some of the grease and grime out of her hair. 

The touch of the water awakens her, and she realises that the candles are burning with a slightly bluish flame, and there doesn't seem to be any melting wax dripping from them. And suddenly she's free from the calm, trusting dream-state she was in before, and the fear is back. 

A while later, she walks out of the toilets, doing her best to comb her damp hair through with her fingers. Now the weeks of grease are gone, she looks blonde again.

Something flickers over the dark woman's face for a moment, an almost audible cracking of her bright mask. Then the smile is back, and she walks over, holding two steaming mugs. Hot chocolate. With little marshmallows.

"I thought this might be kinda, you know, reassuring." Again that brittlely conspiratorial, artificially friendly tone. She doesn't feel compelled to trust it any more. She manufactures a smile, and takes one of the mugs of hot chocolate. 

The dark woman settles down on the pile of blankets next to the glowing stone, a stack of books resting on one side of it, and pats the free space on the blankets invitingly, as if signalling to a cat. 

She sits, trying to keep her distance from the dark woman without betraying her mounting mistrust, avoiding that sparkling obsidian stare. The hot chocolate smells so good, it's all she can do not to take a sip. She forces herself to wonder what it really is, or if it's even real, if she's just holding a dream of a mug of chocolate. 

The dark woman drinks from her own mug. "I was so impressed with what you were _doing_ back there. You had some very clever ideas – like nailing the crosses on the door, and the holy water circles…"

She smells the hot chocolate again, allowing herself to enjoy that much. If it's a dream, it's a good one. "I wasn't clever enough. People got killed."

"No, that's – that's _not your fault!_" The dark woman's tone is suddenly vehement. "Bad things like that happen, and if you're just, just _normal _then you don't have the power to stop them. Not the, the really… bad… things…" She trails off, and for a moment she looks almost vulnerable. 

She's alert now, fear bubbling under the surface. "So why save me, if I'm not any use to you?" She winces, aware that her harsh tone has betrayed her mistrust.

"But you, you _tried_. Even though you knew you couldn't win, you still tried to protect your friends. And it's _important_ that there are people like that." The dark woman looks human now, at once more vulnerable and more terrifying. No longer cold. Fanatical.

"Yeah. People like that end up dead!" She's on her feet now, braced to run, the cup of hot chocolate spilling over the blankets, smelling less like chocolate and more like some heady blend of herbs…

The dark woman is on her feet too. "_But they shouldn't!_"

"And how are you going to stop that?" She's too angry for caution now. 

The shards of the mask heal and harden. "With _you."_

Those dark eyes glitter into hers, and she realises that they're not dark, they're black, they're polished obsidian… She turns to run, she's barely made three steps before that soft voice hisses "_Somnus__," and her muscles turn to water, and the darkness floods up through her eyes and into her head…_

Through the wreathing shadows she looks down, sees the dark woman stripping the layers of sweaters and T-shirts from her unconscious body, laying her half-naked form in the centre of the room. She can see the dark woman take a long, bright shard of glass, close her hand round it until blood flows, then draw more of those intricate, archaic designs around her body, using the glass as a stylus and blood as ink. 

The shadows round her grow denser and hotter, wherever she is, as she watches the dark woman kneel within the circle she's drawn, taking the glass shard and carving more elaborate, terrible symbols onto her body's own naked back. The dark woman works slowly, painstakingly, each cut terribly precise. 

And then the dark woman raises her arms and calls out to the shadows around them both. "Sekhmet! Sekhmet, I call you! From beyond the shadow of the sun, I call you!"

The dark woman's head snaps to one side, and blood flows from five deep parallel gashes in her left cheek. Claw marks. There are tears of pain in her eyes, but also resolve. 

"Sekhmet, I call you! Let this world again know your wrath!" Her back arches, as claw marks appear across her shoulderblades, oozing dark blood, and a cry escapes her throat.

"Sekhmet, take this body I offer you! Take her, let her be the conduit of your wrath!" Again the dark woman cries out, as claw marks rip across her chest. "Take her!"

And the darkness wraps itself around the girl, a burning darkness, and memories that aren't hers flood into her. Sand under her feet, rapidly cooling in the absence of sunlight. The smell of blood spilt by her claws, her fangs. The blind, destructive fury urging her to kill and kill… the numbness, paralysis, her body no longer obeying her, falling to the ground, frustrated rage, her body slipping away from under her, and now, now, the feeling of flesh responding to her again, of having hands to _rip and __tear and _crush_ and …_

Somewhere, she can hear the dark woman's voice still. "Thoth! Thoth, hear me! Wipe her name from your book, for I give her a new name! I name her the warrior of the people!"

She's not sure how long it is before she wakes from that blurred, hot dream-state. When she does, she's aware that she's wrapped in blankets, still lit by the dim greenish light of the stone only. Her back feels a little tender, but the shaky, ill feeling is gone. She hasn't felt so healthy, so _strong_ in ages. And the fear, the grief is fading, and there's something else bubbling up to replace it. 

The dark woman is sitting watching her, drinking from another mug of hot chocolate. There's a clumsy dressing taped across her left cheek. She smiles, a genuine, pleased smile. "So how are you feeling?"

"What the bloody hell did you _do_ to me?" She leaps to her feet now, aware that she's wearing a plain black shirt and trousers in place of her layers of old, unwashed clothing. She isn't cold, though. 

"Well, it's – do you know why all this happened? All the Bad Stuff?" She makes a circular gesture with one hand, indicating the world around them. 

"No, I don't." She chokes down the betrayed fury with an effort. Revenge can wait. She wants answers.

"There used to be these people called Slayers. They were meant to stop things like this happening. But there aren't, not any more." Her voice breaks slightly, and she looks down for a moment. "So I made one."

"So you did what? I saw what you did, you were carving some weird things in my back, you were doing, you were..."

The dark woman gets to her feet and walks towards the girl, her gaze steady. "A Slayer is the one girl in all the world who's been gifted with the strength and instincts to fight vampires and win. So when everything happened, I came to England, holed up here, and read all the really powerful magic books I could find, until I could think up a ritual that would give someone Slayer-powers. And then I just needed someone to do it on. Someone who's clever, and, and brave, and protects people. And I found you."

The dark woman looks vulnerable again, and terribly earnest. The mask is still gone. Somehow, she seems pathetically eager to please now, desperately wanting her new creation to be happy and grateful.

Somehow, she is. Under the rage, there's a savage satisfaction at the idea of getting payback now, after everything, for all the dead children. But still… "I never gave my permission! I never asked to be, to be some kind of warrior against evil!"

The dark woman's eyes seem as sad as obsidian can be. "Nobody ever does." She looks up, turns and starts walking away. "We're finished here. Are you going to come with me? I know where there's more people. I think they might need someone to help them."

The girl watches her for a moment, and then follows. Revenge. Protecting people. They both feel instinctively _right, but in different ways, as if there are different parts of herself responding to each._

They leave the Museum, and walk into the centre of London. Again, their footsteps sound oddly muffled. She finds herself wondering if the Enemy will ignore them this time, and hoping that they won't. 

"No," the dark woman says quietly. "I'm not going to cloud their minds this time. I think maybe you need a little, you know, on the job training." 

And she gets it. They come for them out of a smashed shop window, from where they've been picking over the ruins of Oddbins in hope of intact bottles of alcohol. And the rage boils up from underneath, and strength and viciousness that isn't hers pours into her limbs. She takes the sharp piece of wood the dark woman offers her, something inside her protesting at the thought of killing with weapons rather than her bare hands, and she strikes. Again and again, until all that is left is dust. 

She turns from the battle, sees the dark woman standing to one side, a mixture of awe and fear in her eyes. "Wow. Just… look at yourself? In a bit of window?" 

She stoops, picks up a piece of glass, tilts it to get a reflection. And then, she sees her new eyes, catslit and golden yellow. Her hands convulse in shock, dropping the glass, as claws slide out from under her fingernails.

"You… I'm not human any more!" 

The dark woman steps towards her. "It was the only way! To fight demons, you need to be a bit demon-y, otherwise you're just not, not strong enough!"

She stares at her creator with cold loathing, aware on some level that killing her would be a bad idea, that she still needs her. 

"So show me where these other survivors of yours are. So I can help them. If they don't run away from me screaming."

The dark woman smiles uncertainly. "Oh, they'll be _so pleased to see you!" _


End file.
